The team is all here, and we are up and running on our second day at the Bible Institute.

Video Project:

After dodging weather and waiting at the Houston airport for what seemed like a week, I arrived in Managua last Wednesday night (Thursday morning 1:00 am to be exact). Corey and River Shelman, our video crew, arrived about five hours before me with no troubles (they flew through Atlanta). Cairo and Arlen were excellent guides as we filmed in Juigalpa and Puerto Diaz on Thursday and then filmed interviews back in Managua on Friday. Our filming project was in preparation for our April 3rd memorial and celebration of what God has been doing in Nicaragua in the past ten years since our church lost Jack Logan and Bert Alexander on a fishing trip with some Nicaraguan pastors after one of our Bible Institutes. You will not want to miss that Sunday.

Puerto Cabezas Bible Institute:

Corey and River flew home on Saturday morning and Tommy Walker, Michelle Robinson, Luke Ferguson, and Jordan Crews joined me on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning we flew from Managua to Puerto Cabezas. On the flight over Cairo informed me that I was preaching Sunday night at Pastor Oracio’s church. That night we ate at Pastor Oracio’s house. He is one of the main pastors who helps us organize the Bible Institute. After the preaching we all had the great opportunity to pray with many people who came forward for prayer. Michelle had a very emotional experience as she prayed with a woman and her child who was very ill and perhaps has passed away. The poverty and lack of adequate health care and even awareness of basic hygiene is overwhelming. Please be praying for this young mother.

Monday we started teaching at the Bible institute. Melvin and I carried the load of teaching until Jim and Melanie arrived in the afternoon. It was great to see them and have a few gringos who speak Spanish join us. Jim taught one of the afternoon lessons, and I was happy to have him sharing the load. We are teaching a course on “Reading the Bible for Impact and Understanding.” I will be doing an equipping class sometime this summer that covers this material for us at Fellowship. It is essentially a class on how to read the different genres of the Bible.

Attendance at the Bible Institute is very good but we are facing the challenge of a baseball tournament that is being held in Puerto Cabezas. It is held here once every fifteen years and this is the year for Puerto Cabezas to host. The tournament is two weeks long and will last the entire week we are here. Baseball is the number one sport in Nicaragua so this has had a little impact on the attendance, but we still have over one hundred pastors here early in the week.

Today will be the first very long day for our team to work at the school connected to Pastor Oracio’s church. They will start at 9:30 with the morning class (younger classes) that meets from 7:00am until noon. After lunch they will work with the older kids who go to school from 1:00 until 6:00. The team will also explore some other options for ministry with Pastor Tommy, a Misquito pastor, in preparation for our trip here in October. Please begin to pray if the Lord would have you be a part of our trip down here this fall.

It is such a privilege to be here serving the Lord in this very needy area of Nicaragua. Keep us in your prayers. Pray especially for health, safety, and that the Lord would use us all in ways that are far beyond our abilities or worthiness to be here. We miss you all and will have many stories to tell when we return.